Celebrating End of Year Promotions

Chavistas Graduate and Move On

By: Paty Arvizu, Club Manager

As the school year comes to a close we, club managers, love to go and show our support to our promoting and/or graduating class of Chavistas. Once again, this years promotions were bitter sweet. I love to see our Chavistas accomplishments and growth yet it breaks my heart to see them go especially if they are going to attend schools were we don't have a Chavez Club.

The best part of attending the Chavez Elementary School Promotion ceremony this year was seeing our Chavistas so happy and excited to see me there in support of them. As always, I am always so surprised on the impact we have on our Chavistas and they are not afraid to remind me with their loving words, "Ms. Paty you came!" or "I'll miss you" along with their concerns "Is there a Chavista Club at I'm going to next year?" and a follow up of "But why?!"

Additionally, I attended our Memorial Preparatory for Scholars and Athletes promotion from 8th grade. It was wonderful to see our Memorial Chavistas go on to become young adults, most of whom are attending San Diego High School and are planning on joining our Chavez Club there.

To my surprise (I say surprise because they did not tell me), all of our 8th grade Chavistas received a certificate of Academic Excellence (receiving a 3.0 GPA or higher) which was just amazing! Both the Valedictorian and Salutatorian (VP of the club) were Chavistas! I am beyond proud of all of them and their amazing success, I am more than confident that San Diego High will be obtaining exemplary students and Chavistas this year.

Three of the other schools I attended promotion ceremonies on July 21st were Rosa Parks Elementary, Edison Elementary (Ana's school) and Cherokee Point Elementary. I have to say that all of them went fantastic! I will miss them terribly but I am also so very proud of them.

The best part of attending these promotions is seeing how excited our Chavistas get when they see me there, it fills my heart with joy to see them so excited. Many of our Chavistas families do attend these promotions but there are sometimes when their parents cannot make it due to work and seeing us there supporting them just makes them light up.

I was surprised how some of my Chavistas did not let me know that they were reading a speech at their promotion both in English and Spanish. They also forgot to mention how they were being awarded with awards such as "Most Improved," "Perfect Attendance," etc. I feel like they sometimes skip telling us because they do not want to get more nervous than what they already are, but I am always happy to be there witnessing their growth and commend them on their great work.